WHAT IF’s and WOW!
Every day we live in in the moment, going about our business and personal lives dealing with the here and now. We often don’t take time to critically think about the many “what ifs and wows” surrounding us and this week was full of both.
A press article this week cited that the ghost of former Governor Charlie Crist is haunting the legislature because the recent committee meetings leading up to the 2013 session (starts March 5) are full of “hesitancy” – you can see it in the legislators eyes and hear it in their voices. Without saying it, they are saying “what if Charlie Crist would again be our governor”? And when Governor Scott announced this week that he would accept federal dollars to expand Medicaid for 3 years, one pundit said, “wow, who is this guy”?
PIP – wow!
It is amazing that a majority of the auto rate filings that were due in October 2012 produced auto insurance rate decreases yet Senate President Gaetz in last week’s interview demanded, “They (insurers) promised savings. I want to know where the savings are.” WOW! The bulk of the PIP bill didn’t go into effect until January 1 and in 2012, I was in every single legislative hearing about PIP. Not once did I hear any insurance company say, “instant savings.” They said that the reforms would stem the rate increases and if nothing else, reducing fraud is good for everybody! The below stats are from the Office of Insurance Regulations and prove the point. Those of you reading this must go see your legislators and arm them with these facts listed below or the legislative rhetoric and demands will take over. Am here to help you formulate the message!
Results of HB 119 Auto Insurance Rate Filings — 136 approved:
- 52% resulted in decreases to PIP premiums.
- 71% resulted in decreases or no changes to PIP premiums
Detail:
- 38 filings were increases in PIP
- 32 filings were decreases in PIP
- 25 filings resulted in no changes to PIP
- 36 filings were reduced by at least 10% as HB 119 allowed
- 5 were submitted /reviewed for technical issues
Please use these statistics to educate all those around you and remind them that a law in effect only a few months takes time to kick in!
Property Insurance – What if!
This week’s Senate Banking and Insurance committee was full of what ifs – and actually Chairman Simmons is doing a lot of critical thinking. Frankly I haven’t seen such productive meetings as we have witnessed the last two weeks. Instead of innuendo, misperceptions and falsehoods, Chairman Simmons made sure that every issue and every question was met with detail facts and figures. As one CEO said, “finally we have changed the debate to the truth.” Here’s where we are: What if the state made the hurricane catastrophe fund smaller? What if shrinking the Cat Fund meant that private insurance companies had to buy more private reinsurance? What if Citizens stopped writing 2nd homes or disallowed homes from those who live outside Florida or outside the country? What if Citizens buys more reinsurance but in exchange, the assessment potential is reduced? What if Citizens stopped writing insurance for homes built on the water in environmentally sensitive lands? What if Citizens gets into the reinsurance business and “backs up” policies that the private market wants so these policies could be eased out of Citizens’ door? What if Citizens identified the over 200,000 policies it now has that don’t belong there, ie, they could get a cheaper policy in the private market, and those policyholders were shown the door out of Citizens without having a choice to stay in Citizens? What if a consumer group and the insurance industry stood side by side and presented a unified approach to finding balanced solutions to our property insurance market so that insurance companies and investors would want to rush back into the state? I could go on but you get where I am headed. What are your what ifs? I will be listening for you to tell me!
Health Insurance – What if and wow!
The shocker this week was Governor Scott’s announcement that he will accept the Medicaid expansion funding expanding the program on a trial basis saying it won’t present an undue burden on state taxpayers since the federal government will pick up 100% of the costs for the first three years. Others say that once the over 1 million Medicaid enrollees get into the program, they won’t leave no matter what the federal government does or does not fund. Before members of the Florida Retail Federation this week, Commissioner Putnam criticized the proposal to expand Medicaid in Florida saying “It’s extremely disappointing to learn that Florida may take on billions in additional costs to taxpayers by expanding Medicaid coverage,” Putnam said. Over the next ten years, Florida taxpayers will be forced to pay more than $5 billion to cover the cost of Medicaid expansion.” Another WOW considering that Putnam is a statewide elected official just like Governor Scott – there are only 4 statewide elected officials and these two don’t obviously agree.
Rick Scott’s Medicaid Gambit
A surprising reversal this week from Gov. Rick Scott who now says he embraces Medicaid expansion in Florida. Some are wondering if the reversal was tied to a second waiver approval (in principle) from CMS permitting Florida to move Medicaid recipients to state wide managed care programs.
Doesn’t this all sound too familiar? Remember in 2007, former Governor Charlie Crist opened the floodgates of Citizens Property Insurance Corporation and now we can’t get folks to leave? As a matter of fact, see these headlines – VU JE DA all over again! Read on please – same issues in health facing us in auto and property insurance!
DCF: Medicaid paying nursing home bill for wealthy
The fight against Medicaid and Medicare fraud, waste and abuse remains front and center in today’s headlines. It seems you can’t pick up a newspaper without seeing a headline on some newly discovered scam costing Americans millions. With every new discovery, more regulation and oversight is generated. When will it stop?
The Center for Consumer Information & Insurance Oversight
On February 20, 2013, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released a final rule that helps consumers shop for and compare health insurance options in the individual and small group markets by promoting consistency across plans, protecting consumers by ensuring that plans cover a core package of items that are equal in scope to benefits offered by a typical employer plan, and limiting their out of pocket expenses. Now the work really begins for insurers, providers and OIR to make all the necessary changes to meet the fast approaching deadlines.
And one of our readers sent a terrific article from the recent Consumer Reports Magazine that answers a lot of questions on health insurance reform.
Next week, I want to talk about “Skunks on the Table” – those stinker issues that no one wants to talk about or deal with and ideas on how we do that. What are your skunks on the table? How have you dealt with them? What if we could eliminate the stinkers?? WOW!
Thanks for all you do – every day! Lisa
